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Poachers kill five elephants in Kenya’s most critical elephant habitat

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Nairobi, Kenya

Five elephants have been poached in the last six weeks in the Tsavo ecosystem of Kenya, alarming authorities and conservationists alike. The elephants, whose tusks had been hacked off, were found in three separate parts of the protected area.

Kenya
Wildlife Service (KWS) rangers arrested two suspected poachers and one middleman
from their hideout in the park, and recovered two AK-47 rifles and 38 rounds of
ammunition. The middleman had already sold off the tusks to other dealers in the
illegal ivory trade network.

“Since the one-off ivory sales from southern
Africa countries late last year, we have
noted an unprecedented rise of elephant poaching incidents in Tsavo,” says Jonathan Kirui, Tsavo Assistant Director.
Earlier reports out of KWS indicated a 60 per cent increase in poaching in the
country from 2007 to 2008.

These poaching incidents come barely three
months after the auctions of 112 tons (102 tonnes) of ivory stocks from
South Africa, Bostwana, Namibia and Zimbabwe. This
was the first time in nearly ten years that international trade had been
sanctioned by the UN-backed Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species (CITES). The total sum of ivory auctioned represented the deaths of
approximately 10,000 elephants.

James Isiche, Director of
IFAW’s Regional Office in East Africa, is
concerned that the poaching incident could portend a return to the elephant poaching era
of 70s and 80s.

“The situation is dire, and needs to be
arrested before it escalates further. We believe that there is a strong
correlation between this upsurge and the ivory stockpiles sales allowed by CITES
just a few months ago. Our concern is that the situation may be worse in other
elephant range states which face more serious law enforcement capacity
challenges as compared to Kenya or some of the Southern Africa countries.

“We strongly maintain that
ivory trade anywhere is a threat
to elephants everywhere,” said
Isiche.

Only last week, leading
elephant researcher Dr. Cynthia Moss released a report indicating that an
elaborate poaching syndicate had led to an upsurge in elephant killings in
Amboseli National Park.

“We have information that a kilo of ivory is
going for as low as US$37.50 from local middlemen to other dealers, and this
could be an incentive to local people who were not involved in the illegal trade
in previous years,” Kirui added. A kilo of ivory in the international black
market fetches more than US$850.

Second to size to
Kruger Park, Tsavo is home to Kenya’s
largest single elephant population of about 11,700. Since 2005, IFAW has been
undertaking a five-year collaborative project with KWS in Tsavo to: enhance
management operations in law enforcement and anti-poaching efforts, support
infrastructural needs, mitigate human-wildlife conflict, research, and support
community conservation and education.